The present invention relates to an image reading apparatus which registers an image recorded on an recording medium to be read by the apparatus, and displays the registration list on a display.
When a radiation ray, such as an X-ray, an .alpha.-ray, a .beta.-ray, a .gamma.-ray, an ultraviolet-ray, etc., is irradiated on a certain type of phosphor material, the radiation energy is stored in the phosphor material. Then, by irradiating an excitation light on it, a stimulative luminescence is generated in accordance with the radiation energy stored in the phosphor material. The phosphor material having the abovementioned property is known as a storage phosphor material or a photo-stimulable phosphor material.
Photo-stimulable phosphor material can be utilized for temporarily recording radiation image information of a human body, etc. on a sheet-shaped storage phosphor material (called a radiation image converting plate, or a photo-stimulable phosphor plate). The radiation image converting plate can be scanned by an excitation light, such as a laser beam, etc., to generate image signals by electronically reading the generated stimulative luminescence.
A conventional reading apparatus designates a specific image by reading a bar-code label stuck on a cassette, which corresponds to its reservation for image reading. In this method, however, there have been problems, such as a registration list of them is not displayed and the reading operation can only be performed one by one. In addition, it is troublesome to stick a bar-code label on each cassette and additionally to provide a bar-code reader. Further, it is a time-consuming task to manually operate the bar-code reader for reading each of the bar-codes.